In certain applications, for example, in automatic transmissions for motor vehicles, planetary gears are used with clutch carriers or other structural elements, which are axially supported at two sides. The unhardened structural element made from steel or other metallic alloys is here surrounded at both sides by annealed bearing washers made from steel, with axial roller bearings, particularly needle bearings, contacting it. United States Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0187060 A1 (Bauknecht et al.) shows an example of such an arrangement. Here, a separate bearing washer is provided for each of the axial bearings arranged at the left and the right side of the structural element.
Such bearing support points require a large axial construction space.
Typically, axial bearing support points act unilaterally, the bearing washer respectively axially abuts the structural element and the axial bearing axially abuts the bearing washer. The bearing washer is also called axial washer. This way, the axial width of the bearing support point represents the sum of the axial width of the structural element at said bearing support point, plus the axial width of the bearing washer, and additionally the diameter of a roller body of the axial bearing.
In typical axial bearing support points, acting dual-sided, a bearing washer respectively rests axially at the right and the left side on the structural element. Additionally, one axial bearing abuts each of these bearing washers. This way, the axial width of the bearing support point represents a sum of the axial width of the structural element, plus the axial width of the bearing washer at the left side, plus the axial width of the bearing washer at the right side, and plus the diameter of a roller body of the axial bearing at the left side, and also plus the diameter of a roller body of the axial bearing at the right side.